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Politics : ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION THE FIGHT TO KEEP OUR DEMOCRACY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (2273)	8/17/2007 3:19:01 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Respond to of 3197

Border Patrol agents to build fence WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 U.S. Border Patrol agents handy with a hammer are being diverted from enforcement duties to finish 70 miles of fencing on the shared border with Mexico. The Border Patrol is "going back into the fence-building business," said a memo last week asking for agents with construction experience, The Washington Times reported Tuesday. The agents are pitching in as the Bush administration withdraws half the National Guard troops sent last year to complete 70 miles of border fence by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. "The president's game of pretending to enforce our border continues. He has never been serious about this issue at all," said Rich Pierce, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents the agency's 11,000 non-supervisory agents. Last year, the Bush administration sent 6,000 National Guard soldiers to help with construction and free the Border Patrol to recruit and train 6,000 new agents. Last week, the administration said the program was on track and the Guard troops would be cut to 3,000 by September's end. As of June, 13 miles of new border fence had been built, The Times reported. earthtimes.org

To: John Carragher who wrote (2273)	8/18/2007 2:40:36 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3197

Immigration In '08 >POWERLINE BLOG One of the oddities of the current political moment is that Republicans have suffered most of the political fallout from the ill-fated bipartisan effort at immigration reform, even though most Republicans' positions on immigration are much closer to the nation's mainstream than most Democrats'. This has, I think, warped the perceptions of the pundit class. The conventional wisdom is that the American public has shifted to the Left. While I think there is some truth to that claim, I think it is also true that the President's mediocre standing in the polls, and some of his party's key losses in last November's elections, are attributable in part to Republicans' disenchantment with the administration's position on immigration, and the support of some Republicans in Congress for that position. All of this will change in 2008. With new Presidential contenders in the field, the parties' true positions on illegal immigration will come to the fore. This could be a serious problem for the Democrats. Their presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, supported the Kennedy-McCain bill and has otherwise looked favorably on illegal immigration, e.g. by addressing demonstrations. (YouTube, anyone?) Whoever the Republican candidate turns out to be, barring a McCain resurrection, he will have a far more conservative position on illegal immigration than the Democratic nominee. And that position will be much more in tune with American voters. Just this morning, Rasmussen Reports released new polling data, indicating that 71% of respondents favor requiring foreign visitors to carry a universal ID card, while, by a 58% to 29% margin, respondents favor cutting off federal aid to "sanctuary" cities. What percentage of Democratic voters do you suppose live in sanctuary cities? We've seen over the last year what a potent issue illegal immigration can be. If, in 2008, that issue is working for the Republicans rather than against them, the edge that most observers now concede to the Democrats could shrink, if not disappear.<